The present invention relates to a database table architecture for storing data representative of an event in a table, wherein the event further relates to a plurality of other database tables. This relationship of the data in the event database table to other database tables is scaleable and expandable.
Database tables are well known in the art. One example of use of a database table is to store data representative of an event. This event database table, storing data representing the event, is related to a plurality of other database tables.
Database tables are known in the art. Commonly, a database table contains a plurality of entries. Each entry represents an event and has a plurality of fields. In general, each entry represents an event, and has data representing date, time, the activity, and the participants in the event. Thus, for example, an entry in the first field of the database table, would have the date of the event entered therein. In the second field, the time of the event would be entered. The third field would represent the activity. The fourth field would represent one of the participants in the event, such as a business organization and an entry therein referring to a particular row in a business organization table. A fifth field might represent data in a site table, with the data in the fifth field pointing to the row number in the site table. A sixth field may refer to a case table and to a row number in that case table. A typical event table in a business world application could represent sales activity, such as initial sales call, follow-up, close, delivery, service, etc. made to a particular business organization, at a particular site, with an assigned case number.
In general, the prior art event database table architecture has an event table relating to many other tables such as business organization, site, and case. A problem with the event database table architecture of the prior art 1 is that it is not scaleable. Because one entry in the event table can relate to many other tables, additional columns or fields and relationships must be created if additional participants or new data is to be added. This limits the scaleability and the searchability of the event database table architecture of the prior art.
In the present invention, an event database table architecture includes an event table having date, time, activity, a field for identifying one of a plurality of participating tables, and a field for identifying a row within the identified participating table. A participant table has a field for identifying one of a plurality of participating tables, a second field for identifying a row within the identified participating table, a role code, and a row number identifying the event in the event table.